Currently the most widely used computer input devices include the keyboard, mouse, digital pens, styluses, or a finger swipe on a digital tablet or phone. Due to advancement of digital technologies, more and more computer users are working with digitizer based devices such as a computer, tablet or phone that allow a user to write and draw upon the working area of the computer, tablet or phone and have the signals and codes interpreted by a computer. Specifically, the working area of such surfaces can detect and capture the position, pressure, and trajectory of such input devices. There are many such devices well known to the art U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,967,050, 6,999,067, 5,576,502, and 8,300,030 B2.
Also, well known to the art is a point detecting system for digitizers employing an electromagnetic signal utilizing system. This system comprises a sensor panel including a plurality of sensor coils arranged parallel to the detecting direction. The pointing device is provided with a coil or resonant circuit to perform electromagnetic interaction between the pointing device and the sensor coils. The sensor coils in the sensor panel transmit an electromagnetic wave and receive a response electromagnetic wave re-emitted by the interaction between the transmitted electromagnetic wave and the resonant circuit in the pointing device. The coordinate values of the pointing device are produced by arithmetic operation according to a main sensor signal generating the strongest electromagnetic energy and supplemental sensor signals adjacent to the main sensor as described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 2-53805/1990 and Japanese Patent Application Open Publication No. 3-147012/1991.
Other well-known systems include a sensor panel that transmits an electromagnetic wave and a pointing device that receives the signal and then the reverse, a pointing device transmits an electromagnetic wave and a sensor plate receives the transmitted signal. In these systems, electromagnetic mutual functions are utilized and the pointing device includes a coil or resonant circuit. Furthermore, theses pointing devices have a pressure sensing function to sense device pressure, and have an on off switching mechanism to input switching information at a required position. This is accomplished by changing the resonant condition from the norm position of the coil or resonant circuit. This is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,576,502, 8,947,405 B2 and Japanese Patent Application Open Publications No 63-257823/1988, No 64-53223/1989, No 4-96212/1992 and No. 5-275283/1993.
Also, well known to the art is the active induction method of using an electromagnetic stylus to generate an electromagnetic signal. The active induction method involves installing a power source into the electromagnetic stylus to provide the electromagnetic stylus with sufficient electrical energy for emitting electromagnetic signals. Accordingly the electromagnetic stylus can actively emit the signals to an X/Y axis antenna array on a digital panel for position. This is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,947,405 B2 and 8,300,030 B2.
Also well known to the art is a typical electromagnetic induction type of tablet that may comprise a two-dimensional loop antenna array, multiplexers, analog signal amplifiers, band pass filters, rectifiers, integrator, peak-sampling circuit, analog-to-digital circuit, frequency counting circuit, microprocessor, and the like as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,005,843 and 8,300,030 B2.
Also, the precise position of a digital pen's tracing on a digital tablet can be recorded using a variety of techniques other than electromagnetic resonance and are also well known to the art and include the following: Resistive technology whereby mapping of the pens location is achieved through a resistive sensor sandwiched between two conductive coated plastic films. Pressure on the surface of the plastic films causes electrical resistance to change and allows for the determination of location and pressure intensity by determining the variation in the distance between the two plastic layers. Capacitive technology uses a capacitive sensor that measures the difference in capacitance when a stylus presses on the surface of a capacitive touch screen. Optical technology utilizes a pen and touch technology that utilizes infra-red light as the input method and through the use of mirrors and light sources around the edge of a screen, so that when the stylus object breaks the plane of infra red light, optical sensors recognize this dark sport and that data is used to provide input data. The above constructions however, are severely limited for use during surgery in that the sensor screen cannot be reproduced in the surgical suite and require the pen to touch the tablet surface.
Also, well known to the art, Physicians and surgeons attach a blade to a universal bayonet that is attached to a scalpel handle to cut human tissue for a variety of purposes. When a surgeons uses a scalpel, it is well known to the art that a surgeon or their assistant at the time of surgery, manually measure and record the location of the surgery by using anatomic landmarks on the body and a traditional metric ruler to convey the location in their medical record or to another physician to complete treatment. Also, a surgeon will approximate or manually measure the trajectory and describe the shape of the trajectory and manually add that to the medical record. There are significant limitations to this prior art in that the measurements are often forgotten to be performed, or are often approximated, incomplete, unreliable, arbitrary or often wrong, making the record of the procedure unreliable and challenging for future care by other surgeons, physicians and challenging for medical documentation purposes including billing and medico legal purposes.
The ability to digitally map the precise coordinates while a surgeon deploys a scalpel handle to perform surgical procedures such as excisions, incisions and biopsies on a patient and the ability to digitally map the size, shape and trajectory form of a scalpel used during a surgical procedure on a body is challenging for a surgeon. Currently, the surgeon, if not forgotten at the time of surgery, manually measures with a traditional ruler and manually records in the patient record the approximate distances from anatomic landmarks on the body to document where a surgical procedure took place on the body. A surgeon typically uses a traditional metric ruler to approximate and measure the size and shape of surgical excision, incision or biopsy.
There are limitations in the prior art for using electromagnetic resonance mapping of a surgical procedure as it occurs and to insure that a surgeon's measurements are precise, reliable, reproducible and recorded digitally with digital coordinates at the time of the surgical procedure, and similarly there are limitations in the prior art to record or reliably reproduce precise mapping of location, size and shape of procedures related to the body and related to surgical procedures, incision, excision or biopsies.
There are limitations of the prior art regarding the use of an operating room or surgical table sensor system that enables electromagnetic resonance signals to digitally record or map precisely the coordinate location and trajectory form where a surgeon used his scalpel to perform surgical incisions, excisions or biopsies.
Additional limitations of prior art regarding the use of a magnetic resonance generating scalpel handle in use with a electromagnetic resonance sensor system that enables a surgeon to convert his hand held approach and hand held directed surgical trajectory into a digital on line form.
Additional limitations of prior art regarding a surgeon's limitation to being able to digitally map coordinates of his surgical position and surgical trajectory on a patient during surgery using a scalpel handle.
Additional limitations of prior art utilizing capacitance or resistance technologies for mapping techniques are limited for their use of a scalpel on a body during surgery by the requirement of touching or approximating a digital tablet, computer or phone as a sensor board with a stylus or finger swipe . . . .
Additional limitations of prior art of manually measuring or approximating surgical procedure locations and trajectories as performed by a surgeon are that the measurements are not reproducible, often unreliable, and imprecise and performed after that fact, and require manual input into a digital medical record and therefore subject to human error and misinterpretation with no standardization.
Accordingly, a methodology, which overcomes the shortcomings of prior art, is desired.